Tag: Photograph

Winter to Summer Solstice (4)

Day 4 Sunset 15.43pm

Merry Christmas everyone. It was a quiet Christmas day for us. We got up at our usual time, about 8.30am and opened our presents. Sadly the dogs never got all of their presents as Millie, my 10 year old lab, has sore tummy and we had to cut back on treats and food in general.

After preparing the veg, I had already made the vegan roast the night before, we took the dogs for a walk. I decided I wanted to take a wooden decoration from our Christmas tree to Finlarig castle and hang it on a tree in memory of my Mum. I scattered her ashes there in June, a day before we married there. It was such a lovely winters day that it felt nice to just linger in that space for a while.

I wrote a message on the back so that whoever read it might say her name out loud.

By the time sunset came around we were sitting down to dinner. I asked Helen to pause and we told each other what we were grateful for. It felt fitting when there are so many troubles in the world at the moment.

Christmas dinner.
My wife Helen
I look taller here but I am standing and Helen is sitting.

So there you go, Christmas Dinner at sunset.

What did your Christmas day look like?

Zoom Moon

I took this photo on my phone. My phone camera isn’t the best but I like how this turned out. There are so many colours, much more that my eyes could capture.

Incidentally, one of my friends dyes her own wool and asked me if she could use the colours from my photograph. What a strange and fantastic privelage. The wool will be named and sold as Zoom Moon.

Anyhoo, how is everyone? I’ve been a little bit quiet in the last week. I have begun editing my novel and that is taking up a lot of my free time. I have also been struggling with anxiety, (it comes and goes). This particular spell was bad and I think a lot of it comes from over consuming news (and public opinions). I find it difficult to identify with a lot of people politically, and in current affairs. I’m a lefty of course, and one of them damn woke people. But I have taken a Facebook and Twitter holiday. It’s only been a day and I feel better.

That’s all for now. Just thought I would check in.

Cheers for reading.

Camping

This is me, my partner Helen and our youngest dog Kimber.

I love this photograph so much, it says a lot about our little family. The photograph was camptured by Helen’s mum while we were camping at Comrie Croft in Perthshire. You can see that is was a happy day, a fun day. I think we were relieved, it rained loads while we were there, but on this day, there was a break from the grey, the cold and the dampness, and it lifted our spirits.

PROMPT

Write a story or poem about a group of people camping, but write it in two parts.

The first should be set inside the tent. The weather is cold, wet and grey. Everyone is a bit damp and miserable. What does the atmosphere feel like? Is there conversation? What can you see, smell, taste, feel?

Now write the second part. The weather has changed, the clouds have shifted and the sun is high in the sky. The tent is suddenly warmer, there are voices outside as people unzip their tents and venture out into the bright open field. How does the mood change inside, and then outside of the tent. What happens? How does it feel? What can you see, smell, taste, feel?

Happy camping folks

A Scottish Jig

Taken at Bannockburn House

There is so much going on in this photograph and that’s why I took it. It was taken outside the 17th century mansion Bannockburn House. Notice the man in his traditional Scottish dress, the wheelchairs – one neatly placed, one abandoned. Then there is the bike propped under a window beside a 1980’s wire bin.

PROMPT

Using the photograph above, write a short story or poem about arriving late to a party and finding yourself back on 1984. When did you realise and how? Who was there that you haven’t thought about in a long time? How was everyone dressed, what music was playing and what was on the buffet?

Have a ball and happy writing.

Home

Web

Taken on a dreich morning in Stirling

Have you ever stepped outside into a cold morning to find that your garden has been spun into a new world of silver threads and pearl droplets? Think about how hard those tiny spiders have worked to create this masterpiece. Look at the photograph above and imagine only one strand of the web. Now imagine that single strand is the first draft of your novel, short story, poem or whichever creative masterpiece you have just finished writing. Now it’s time to build your web. Editing is the job of going around and around, reworking, re-writing, correcting, enhancing, adding and subtracting, developing and enriching. It’s like building a spider’s world. 

That Time

hand pen writing plant
Photo by Natalie B on Pexels.com
I hadn’t seen her in a decade,
Not since that time we …
Now she’s lying before me, tucked-up warm
In hospital sheets.

Her face is older now, saggy in parts -
And sallow. Her mouth puckers into
A tight circle when I arrive, an ‘Oh!’ 
Like that time we…

She touches my arm, cold fingers
That leave cold circles for minutes after.
‘How have you been? How time flies,
Tell me, what have you done since… 
You know.’

Her shoulders hunch, eyebrows rise.
She reads my face, faster 
Than the note I left by her bed…

‘Tell me,' she insists, 'did you sail to that island,
Where the wind whips the waves
Onto the lighthouse by the edge
Of the sea. Did you?

‘Did you climb the thousand stone steps
To the castle in the sky,
Where the world ends 
And life unfolds like a paper chain?'

‘Did you finally find that missing moment, 
Capture it in a photograph,
A half-truth bent into a scrap
Of happiness? 
Or did you leave it behind?’

Her chestnut eyes leave mine,
Trail the cracks on the ceiling
And rest in the corner of room.
The sound of my footsteps echo
After I leave.

©EilidhGClark

This poem is now published by The Ogilvie.

Dew

I have named this photograph Dew. Thank you to my own dog Kimber for sitting long enough for me to get this shot.

DSCF3548

©Eilidh G Clark

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